Himura Kenshin
Himura Kenshin is the main protagonist and titular character of the Rurouni Kenshin series. Known as the legendary Hitokiri Battōsai (人斬り抜刀斎) during the Meiji Revolution, Kenshin has spent the ten years since living as a rurouni and carrying a sakabatō with the vow never to take another life. In early 1878, he arrives in Tokyo and takes up residence at the Kamiya dojo, where - among new friends and challenges - his vow is tested and his personal redemption may be discovered. Appearance Of small, slender build and with a youthful, feminine visage, Himura Kenshin cuts quite a different figure than would be expected of the legendary Hitokiri Battōsai and his appearance belies his twenty-eight years of age, making him look roughly ten years younger, but he is easily recognized by his infamous distinguishing features: mid-back length red hair tied in a thick ponytail and a cross-shaped sword scar on his left cheek. The scar actually consists of two separate scars - a long one running diagonally down his face from just below the outer corner of his left eye to just above his chin and a slightly shorter scar running diagonally across it in the other direction from just to the left of the bridge of his nose to his left jawbone. In a redesign for the kanzenban, Kenshin's scar has been altered so that the lateral scar is longer, stretching across his nose to just below the inner corner of his right eye. Kenshin's hair is thick and abundant, with all of the shorter frontal hairs falling across his face as bangs rather than being in the ponytail at the nape of his neck. During the bakumatsu, Kenshin wore his ponytail higher and at the end of the series, he has cut the ponytail entirely and wears his hair evenly at about chin length. Kenshin's eyes, too, are unusual, being a deep violet. In the anime series, when Kenshin's eyes change to reflect his psychological reversion to Hitokiri Battōsai, their color shifts from violet to gold. Kenshin dresses simply, wearing a plain men's kimono of cheap, worn cloth with a white umanori hakama, zori and white tabi. In the anime series, Kenshin's kimono is almost always a soft red like burgundy, but in the manga, he alternates between this, a bolder red, purple and deep blue. His sakabatō is worn under his obi at his left hip in a black, steel saya. Personality Soft-spoken, serene and humble, Himura Kenshin's usual demeanor suits his effeminate appearance perfectly. Always willing to put others before himself, both in terms of well-being and social standing, Kenshin usually refers to others with the noble honorific of "-''dono''" while nearly always speaking of himself with the particularly humble pronoun "sessha" (translated by Viz as "this one") and ending his phrases with the formal verb "de gozaru" (translated by Media Blasters as phrases like "that it is" or "that I am"). He carries himself with an air of amicable temperance, politely conversing with the people he encounters and freely giving his meager services to those who need a hand. Kenshin doesn't hesitate to put himself in the path of harm to shield those around him and often attempts to diffuse contentious situations with soft, calming words and a somewhat clownish personality involving feigned clumsiness and his trademark interjection "oro" (a unique pronunciation of "ara"). These traits lead those unfamiliar with Kenshin to view him as ineffectual or easily exploitable, but more perceptive people become aware in short order that his gift for placatory eloquence and veiled redirection of disagreeable situations suggest a deep wisdom belied by his youthful, unassuming visage. Tormented by his past as a hitokiri, Kenshin has developed an acute appreciation for life and has taken a vow in his heart to never again kill another person and to do everything within his power to protect people from being killed. This vow is the defining characteristic of Kenshin's personality and the primary motivation for his transition into a rurouni. Despite this, however, he holds his own existence cheap and carries in his heart a grievous guilt that prevents him from becoming emotionally close to the people around him and compels him to a life of humble service and selfless personal sacrifice. Even with his prodigious skill as a prolific swordsman, Kenshin refrains from wielding his great combat strength for his own sake, drawing his sword only for the well-being of others when words fail to appease. Though unwilling to simply be killed by unrelated attackers, Kenshin freely accepts that any grudges against his past self are well-deserved; he remembers the face of every person he has wronged as the Hitokiri Battōsai and will face their hatred or judgment without complaint, believing that he does not deserve the same happiness as others. Spending much of his alone time in quiet contemplation of his past misdeeds and future retribution, Kenshin often ponders what the right path toward redemption is and laments each life lost due to his weakness. As such, he has a tendency toward trying to solve problems all by himself and alienating his would-be allies with secrecy so as to keep them from becoming involved in his risky endeavors. Having lived his own life carrying heavy regrets, Kenshin is reluctant to judge others for their personal actions, beliefs or mistakes and always offers hopeful encouragement so that those who have stumbled onto the wrong path might redeem themselves in the future. However, when forced to draw his sword against those who abuse their power and undervalue the lives of others, Kenshin's calm temperament gives way to a marked intensity capable of intimidating even other skilled swordsmen and can go so far as to become a powerful fury, despite his compulsion toward diplomacy. But when his strength as a rurouni is insufficient to defend against a particularly threatening foe, Kenshin's restraint falters and his personality reverts to that of his days as the Hitokiri Battōsai. He immediately abandons his serene humility, reverting from sessha to the more abrasive pronoun "ore" while dropping de gozaru and oro from his speech. Kenshin's normally warm nature becomes cold and distant, allowing him to contemplate taking the life of his opponent and even make vicious, bloodthirsty threats. This side of his personality is one that Kenshin struggles to suppress despite the fact that it keeps emerging when he is under great stress and in need of extra strength. His greatest fear is that, one day, he will return to his former self and become a hitokiri once more. As time passes, however, Kenshin learns to trust the people around him with the truth about himself as well as with some of the burden he bears, understanding that his life, too, is a human one and that his friends and allies would suffer greatly if he were to die. Relationships * Kamiya Kaoru The first friend he made in Tokyo after saving her life from a false Hitokiri Battousai, Even after learning of his savage past,Kaoru invites Kenshin to stay at her dojo as she notes that he is a gentle person instead of a hitokiri. As the series continues, Kaoru develops strong romantic feelings for Kenshin, feelings he returns, but because he is constantly haunted by his past deeds, his belief that he does not deserve happiness, and their mutual shyness on the subject, he chooses not to act on them. One of Kaoru's biggest fears is that Kenshin might someday return to wandering, leaving her to be alone again. She gets jealous whenever another girl is also interested in Kenshin, such as Takani Megumi with whom she often argues but ultimately admires. By the end of the manga Kenshin and Kaoru marry and have a son named Himura Kenji together. * Sagara Sanosuke * Myōjin Yahiko * Hiko Seijūrō XIII * Yukishiro Tomoe Abilities Miscellaneous techniques Modoshigiri ::The most skilled swordsmen using the best of blades were supposedly able to slice an object in two and rejoin the halves together, as if it were never cut at all. Kenshin demonstrates this when he cuts a daikon and then reforms it back together. He doesn't cut it with his sword, but rather a kitchen knife, since his sakabatō was broken at that time. ;Zantetsu :The most skilled swordsmen were purportedly able to use their swords to cut through steel. Kenshin states he can use it anywhere except underwater. History Kenshin is born into a peasant family under the given name of "Shinta". After losing both his parents to cholera by age seven, he is sold into slavery.The slave-traders' caravan is attacked by bandits who kill all of the peasants except for Shinta, who is saved by a swordsmanship teacher called Seijūrō. He renames the boy "Kenshin", as the name 'Ken' (sword) and 'Shin' (heart) were more fitting for a swordsman. After a few years under Seijūrō's guidance, Kenshin's wish to protect the people with his skills results in his abandonment of both his master and his training , which was left incomplete. His sword skills soon attract the attention of Katsura Kogoro, a leader of the Chōshū clan. Kenshin is sent to Kyoto and assigned the role of an assassin, sharing the common goal of the Ishin Shishi upon the Tokugawa shogunate. Within the first six months of his career, he kills over 100 people, and eventually became known as the "Hitokiri Battōsai". At one point, he comes face to face with a woman named Yukishiro Tomoe, who initially wanted to avenge the death of her fiancé whom Kenshin had killed, but falls in love with him instead and starts a romantic relationship. After the crisis suffered by the Chōshū clan in the Ikedaya Jiken, both Kenshin and Tomoe act as a married couple to keep anyone from finding out Kenshin's true identity as an assassin and flee to a remote village.Sometime later, Tomoe meets with the leader of the Yaminobu, a fictional pro-Shogunate covert network of ninjas that had formulated a plan to assassinate Kenshin. She realizes that all along they had actually used her to create Kenshin's weakness. Meanwhile, Kenshin runs off to find his wife, but is ambushed by Yaminobu ninjas and is severely wounded. He manages to defeat them and eventually finds Tomoe with the leader of the Yaminobu. In a desperate attempt to defeat the leader, Kenshin blindly swings his sword, killing both his assailant and Tomoe, who jumps in at the last minute to save Kenshin from a fatal attack. Tomoe's knife flies into the air and coincidentally slashes Kenshin's already scarred cheek, creating the famous X-shaped scar across his left cheek. Following the death of Tomoe, Shishio replaces Kenshin in his role as assassin, and Kenshin is reassigned as a guerrilla swordsman protecting the Imperialists. After the end of the Bakumatsu, Kenshin leaves Kyoto. Development and Reception He is the main protagonist for the series and has developed into a media franchise, which consists of a series of manga, anime, original video animations (OVAs), movies, soundtracks, video games, and other collectibles. When creating Kenshin, Watsuki designed him to be the physical opposite of Hiko Seijūrō, a character that appears in Watsuki's first one-shot manga, Crescent Moon in the Warring States, and later in Rurouni Kenshin as his swordsmanship teacher. Kenshin's character was well received by fans, with his holding the top spot in all reader popularity polls for the series. Critics of the series praised his personality, though some complained about his development during the anime OVA series, which differs from the manga. A variety of collectibles based around Kenshin have been created, including figurines, key chains, plushies, and replicas of his sakabatō sword. Watsuki discovered and used the story of Kawakami Gensai, a hitokiri executed by the Meiji Government. According to Watsuki, when he found that Kawakami maintained a duty to his dead comrades, he decided to create the title character. Since Watsuki's debut work contained a tall, black-haired man in "showy" armor, the creator wanted to make a character "completely opposite" to the debut character and the new character ended up "coming out like a girl." According to Watsuki, he used "no real motif" when creating Kenshin and placed a cross-shaped scar when "not knowing what else to do."At the end of the series, Kenshin appears with short hair. Initially, Watsuki had planned to make his hair shorter before the end, however, he found this to be similar to the character Multi from To Heart.Watsuki based most of Kenshin's abilities on a real swordsman of the Tokugawa period named Matsubayashi Henyasai, who was skilled in acrobatic techniques.During the Kyoto arc, Kenshin is given a new sword with a sheath made of wood. Watsuki decided to redesign the sword to make it look as the first one Kenshin had in the series, though it is more difficult to draw.During the development of Rurouni, Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story, Watsuki and his editor argued over Kenshin's speech patterns; they settled for a "slangy" pattern. For the final version of the first Romantic Story, Watsuki adjusted the dialogue; in his view, he made Kenshin sound "more as I prefer him now."Watsuki added Kenshin's trademark "oro" as a placeholder to be an expression of the English speech disfluency "huh." Watsuki notes that he was surprised at how much it caught on, and how much he ended up having Kenshin use the sound during the series.Watsuki also planned to make Kenshin older than 30 years old; his editor commented that it was strange that the main character of a manga for teenagers was so old, so he made Kenshin 28 years old.In the first Rurouni Kenshin kanzenban, published in Japan in July 2006, Watsuki included a draft page featuring a redesign of Kenshin's character. To make his X-shaped scar more notable, Watsuki made it long enough to cross his nose. Kenshin's hair is tied in two tails, which are flowing to make him look younger, but shorter, to be less androgynous. Watsuki also added a habaki to Kenshin's sword to make it easier to draw by simplifying its structure, while also emphasizing strength.Kenshin's hitokiri look was also redesigned slightly, by making his clothes more damaged and giving him Yukishiro Tomoe's neck scarf.In the anime adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin, Watsuki's designs were combined with the voice talents of Mayo Suzukaze, a female seiyū. In producing the English dub version of the series, Media Blasters considered following suit, with Mona Marshall considered as a finalist for voicing Kenshin. Richard Hayworth eventually was selected for the role, giving Kenshin's character a more masculine voice in the English adaptation. Marshall was selected instead to voice the younger Kenshin during flashback scenes. Clark Cheng, writer of the dub script, noted that localizing Kenshin's unusual speech was a difficult process. His use of "de gozaru" and "oro" were not only character trademarks that indicated Kenshin's state of mind, but important elements to the story. However, neither is directly translatable to English, and in the end the company chose to replace "de gozaru" with "that I did" and "that I am." Kenshin's signature "oro" was replaced with "huah" to simulate it being a "funny sound" that had no real meaning. Appearances in other media Kenshin first appears in two chapters of Rurouni, Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story in which he arrives in Tokyo and defeats several groups of villains attacking families. In these stories, Kenshin is given a similar personality to the one he has in the series but his name is unmentioned. Later, in the movie Samurai X The Motion Picture, Kenshin meets a samurai named Takimi Shigure, who tries to overthrow the Meiji Government and avenge the deaths of his family during the Bakumatsu. Kenshin encounters Shigure and defeats him in order to avoid the start of a war. In the OVAs, Kenshin is given a more humanized design and a different personality. There are also numerous changes to his life story compared to that of the manga, including the way he received his X-shaped scar in Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal. In Samurai X: Reflection, as time passes, Kenshin becomes tortured anew by the guilt of leading a happy life after such a destructive past. He makes the decision to wander again, and Kaoru strongly supports him, promising to welcome him home with a smile and their child. Kenshin eventually becomes ravaged by an unknown disease. However, he decides to assist in the First Sino-Japanese War as he had promised the Meiji Government. After the war's end, Sanosuke discovers a gravely injured Kenshin on the shore, and arranges for Kenshin's return to Tokyo and Kaoru. The two finally meet, and Kenshin collapses into her arms as he clutches her to him. Kaoru then notices Kenshin's scar has faded away, signifying his death. Nobuhiro Watsuki, after watching the last OVA, was quite unhappy with how his story ended, saying that "Kenshin went through so much crap and deserved a happy ending." Kenshin is a playable character in all of the Rurouni Kenshin video games, including Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars. Tokiko Tsumura, one of the main characters of Buso Renkin, another series created by Watsuki, is based on the design of Kenshin as a hitokiri. Watsuki commented that Tokiko is the female version of the "Hitokiri Battōsai" when he drew her face. Reception Kenshin has been highly popular with the Rurouni Kenshin reader base, having ranked first in every Shonen Jump popularity poll of the series, always with more than double the votes of second place. Watsuki received letters from fans describing Megumi Ogata's audio theatre voice as a "good fit" for Kenshin. Watsuki said that he imagined Kenshin's voice to be "more neutral." A plethora of merchandise have been released in Kenshin's likeness including keychains, action figures, and plush dolls. Since the manga was published, non-functional and functional sakabatō have been produced for purchase by collectors and fans. Several publications for manga, anime, video games, and other media have provided praise and criticism on the character. T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews criticized that the fact that Kenshin looks super deformed in comedy scenes is not suited for the context of the character and the series. AnimeOnDVD.com remarks that Kenshin has a "smartass" attitude in a review of volume 8; while they noted that is a common attitude in the anime that makes him look out-of-character. Anime News Network praises Kenshin for being a character that all people enjoy to watch due to his comedy scenes. SciFi.com remarked "Kenshin's schizoid personal conflict between his ruthless-killer side and his country- bumpkin" as a perfect way to develop good stories. The development of Kenshin in the OVA series has had negative reviews by many publications. Anime News Network also adds that in Samurai X: Reflection he continues to be his old mopey self and criticizes that he never says "oro," while IGN cited that some moments of the relationship between Kenshin and Kaoru were depressing.However, some reviewers noted Kenshin's personality in the OVAs to be one of the most complex to ever be animated remarking the fact that he can not forget his bloody past, although having a peaceful life. A large number of video game characters were based on the character of Kenshin such as Keiichiro Washizuka from The Last Blad''e and Shizumaru Hisame from the ''Samurai Shodown series. Kenshin's personality was also planned to be used in the character Kakashi Hatake from Naruto, but the idea was deemed as a failure. In an interview with Mayo Suzukaze, who is the seiyū for the character, she says that she started feeling similar to Kenshin after years of work as his voice, and comments that providing the voice for the character was one of her best experiences. Category:Characters Category:Kenshin-Gumi Category:Male Category:Swordsman